


Kodachrome

by paralleltonone



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-20 00:26:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paralleltonone/pseuds/paralleltonone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam loves to take pictures. He loves to take pictures of the world around him and the people around him, especially of Zayn, but sometimes he take pictures of other experiences and other people. And doesn't delete the memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kodachrome

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story and the lyrics quoted at the bottom are from Paul Simon's ["Kodachrome"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLsDxvAErTU) and it was what I kept singing in my head at 9:00 AM when I got the urge to suddenly write this story. This song is probably too happy for this story, but. There it is. :(
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNING:** This story makes mention of suicide, so if this is triggering for you, please don't read.

          Liam always loved taking pictures. He loved the feel of a camera between his hands as he snapped shot after shot of the world the way brown eyes saw it. Buildings in Fujifilm's image, smiles of loved ones captured in only the way Kodak could, mobile cameras getting every bit of the action Liam could record and snap, silhouetted images of honey-colored skin playing out before the lens of a Nikon. Images of a subject that was definitely Liam's favorite, the reason he took so many pictures over the past couple of years, the beauty he had to capture in every light and every moment possible.

          Sometimes Zayn didn't know Liam had a camera turned on him. Sometimes he'd be caught at the most mundane moments, moments that were insignificant until he saw it in the index of Liam’s camera, lining the walls of his tour bus bunk or on his fridge and desk at his flat. Mundane as Zayn tying his shoe, performing before an audience of one in a mirror, sneakily making their tour manager's life a living hell as usual, curled up against Liam with their bodies pressed so close it almost felt as if they were one person, one soul. Those especially were the ones that found their way everywhere Liam could hang them.

          There were times when Zayn was aware, though. Times when the corners around his hazel eyes would wrinkle genuinely in a smile just for Liam, times when Zayn would pull Liam in close as the camera captured the reflection of a kiss to Liam's cheek in a mirror, times when Zayn would make a show of the mischief he wanted to be certain Liam caught on film, times when Zayn implored that he put on a show meant for Liam and only Liam. A show before a strategically placed digital witness that logged the way Liam's tanned skin fused with Zayn's, moans and whispers of names, the moonlight making sweat glisten on bare bodies, fingernails trailing abrasions along shoulder blades and chiseled backs, lips pressed together with tongues colliding only breaking to speak whispers of adoration in the highest regard, silent glances exchanged as the build up of that entire moment sent a rush over them.

          Angles always made it hard to view Liam's favorite moment: Zayn pressed again him with his chin on Liam's chest as stared up at him from beneath hooded lashes, barely dressed in anything but bedsheets, dark hair tousled and reddened lips swollen, pure happiness all over his face even if he wasn't smiling and those words being spoken that Liam never got tired of hearing: _“I love you, Liam Payne...”_

___________________________________________

          Liam loved taking pictures. He loved the feel of the camera between his hands as he captured the people around him. Glimpses of the life he lived with him on SD cards and in cell phone memories. Glimpses of moments with people he shouldn't have had. Liam took picture after picture after picture of all he saw and all he did, and it was rare that he ever deleted. So, that was why his Nikon held an image one would miss if they blinked. An image much like that of the many he Zayn took in mirrors and reflective surfaces all the time. But Zayn wasn't the brunette poised behind Liam in the still steamy W bathroom, it wasn't Zayn's waist covered in the hotel's white terrycloth, it wasn't Zayn's lips pressed to his shoulder, and the green irises peeking from behind that shoulder to veer into the mirror were definitely not Zayn's.

          Liam rarely deleted, and he misplaced sometimes. That was why an mini-DV that'd once been housed in that same JVC that caught Zayn in his most intimate ways was missing, a mini-DV with Liam sharing a moment much like those before. But not with Zayn. On that tape, Zayn wasn't the brunette whose lips fit so perfectly around every inch of Liam as if they were made strictly for pleasuring him. When fingers tangled in brown curls, it wasn't Zayn's locks and Liam knew that. It wasn't Zayn's mouth that Liam's tongue explored as he tasted every bit of himself. Zayn wasn't the slender figure whose bracelet-lined wrist could be seen as his hands and fingers made the same movements Zayn's had made so many times before down Liam's back. Those pale, long legs fitted around Liam's middle were definitely not Zayn's.

          And the end of that shameful moment that lied somewhere on that missing tape wasn't the end Liam favored so much. There were lazy kisses and hands touching as if they hadn't touched enough already, but there was no olive-toned skin draped across him and no words spoken to make him feel like the king of the world. Because that Nikon moment and that missing moment weren't with Zayn.

___________________________________________

          Zayn. Zayn loved going through Liam's pictures. He loved seeing things from his boyfriend's perspective, trying to imagine the beauty Liam saw in all that he captured, trying to understand why Liam felt the need to capture so much with cameras of his own and cameras of complete strangers before crowds of thousands. Zayn loved going through Liam's pictures, and Zayn didn't blink or miss a beat when he scanned through them. And so Zayn saw the picture in the bathroom. And Zayn asked Harry about it. Harry, not Liam. He confronted Harry in a territorial state to intimidate and drive the point home that Liam was his. His property. His love. His everything. And those moments belonged to them.

“We didn't do anything, it was just a picture after I showered in his room since my water wasn't getting warm enough.”

          That was what Harry said and that was what Zayn forced himself to believe.

          Zayn loved watching Liam's videos. He loved seeing all the moving pictures Liam had caught. He usually looked at the labeled ones because that meant something was on the tape. Liam was too anal to not label them all with something. But there was one in the bag: one with no case or no label. Zayn had to assume it was for the trash because Liam wouldn't not label if it held something on it, but Zayn had to be sure and into the camcorder the DV went. From the beginning, it was a mess of a tape with things that had been captured by none other than a scatter-brained Niall who couldn't focus on one thing at a time and couldn't stop talking behind the lens.

          Partners in crime psyching out Paul with the button for the studio's fire alarm, Irish-accented giggles blaring off-screen at them and the sight he cut to continuously of tall males with no dancing skills insisting on one doing steps for the other to mimic. The curly-haired one breaking into a dimpled blush and pressing his face into the shoulder muscles of the other upon realizing their friend had a camera trained on them, the tail end of the image shaking with more Irish laughs and blurred images that finally came into focus again with Paul holding the eldest of the entire group in a headlock. A shaky tail end that Zayn was sure showed his boyfriend, his love, his everything fitting his arms around the waist of someone that wasn't him and his lips pressed to that someone's temple.

___________________________________________

          Zayn loved watching Liam's videos. He loved seeing their love for one another play out so visually, right there on display to him more so than ever. So, he fast forwarded on the tape, searching for a moment like that. Fast forwarded past more choppy studio footage, past shaky images of them in a restaurant, past - wait. No. This was it. Liam always seemed to know just where and how to set the camera up. He knew the exact placement it needed to be in to capture them, and when he heard Liam's voice ask for assurance in their want to do just as he did everytime with Zayn whom he never really had to ask because he wanted every moment they shared on film, the voice that replied wasn't Zayn's. But Zayn knew that voice. And he knew that laugh even if he couldn't see them right away when Liam went to the bed and pulled him down onto it with him. That raucous laugh that he always suddenly cut short usually with a hand over his mouth. Then Zayn saw him. All curls and lanky frame splayed all across his property, and Zayn couldn't watch anymore. He did Liam the favor of labeling it though: **ASSHOLES GONE WILD**.

          He held onto that tape for two days, two days spent with minimal conversations with Liam or Harry and instead with thoughts of how to approach them. He could have talked to them alone. He could pulled them aside and hashed it out. He could have done everything but insist on a movie night at Liam's home, but he wanted them to hurt the way he did. He wanted to watch the shame build over their faces in the same way he knew it had over his when he saw it. He wanted to see Harry's breathing start to labor and his eyes start to water the way they did when he got scared or nervous. He wanted to see Liam's jaw and muscles go taut and his ever-present smile disappear the way they did when he knew he'd done wrong.

“Oh my god, Zayn, really? You called us over here for this? Niall can't even keep a good shot of anything!” Louis exclaimed.

          But Zayn said nothing from his spot on the arm of the sofa. Instead he looked over to Harry and Liam who sat side-by-side and watched the color drain from Liam's face as confusion turned to realization. Yeah, this was _that_ day. And there was the hand covering the mouth in upset and the labored breathing. Apparently, Harry got it too. Niall and Louis didn't get it, though, but Louis recognized the restaurant shot as being from the same night he and Zayn went to a club that gave out free shots the entire night.

“Harry, you should have come with us. It was great."

          But Harry was busy, had other plans and soon they all knew that. Before his image even appeared on the screen, Harry turned to Zayn with tearful eyes and whispers of how sorry he was, but Zayn shushed him quickly.

“Shhh, Harry, here comes the best part. When I wanted to die. Right about...here.”

          Long limbs colliding played out before the five men on the widescreen on the wall. Kisses and touches that shouldn't have been given to Harry were seen being placed on him by all of them. Moans he shouldn't have made Liam emit blared through the surround sound speakers. Then the screen went black and there was Liam with the remote in hand, finger on the power button. Then those same fingers were on Zayn and trying urge him from the room.

“We don't need to talk privately, Li. I think common sense will tell them what's about to happen. We're done. Consider yourself free to shag Harry in front of every camera you own.”

___________________________________________

          But Liam didn't. Liam didn't take pictures anymore after that. He didn't capture the way the band crumbled after that. The way Harry finally took someone up on a solo deal. The way Niall distanced himself bit-by-bit until his days in their country were few and far between. Other cameras were there to capture Louis' life on the opposite end of interviewing. And Liam wasn't the one who snapped those late night and over-the-top attention-seeking moments Zayn's life had become, including the tape filmed on someone else's camera that didn’t star him and Zayn.

          Liam didn't ingrain another memory to a photograph after Zayn left him. After Zayn refused to hear him out. After he lost his love, his world, his everything. All over a moment of weakness in one day. One day that someone else gave the attention and affection that Zayn wasn't giving that day. One day that was stilled in a photograph and ran over a video.

          But eventually Liam had decided to dust off his old Polaroid that rarely saw the light of day even back when he did take pictures. The image was captured, and it was probably the best he'd ever taken, where the angles and the sun had created something magnificent on the subject, but Liam never saw it develop. Louis saw it. So did Niall. So did Harry. And so did Zayn. And he kept it. Zayn kept the Polaroid that Liam had taken of a wall in his home, a wall full of pictures of Zayn he'd taken over the years, a wall he'd used to spell out his feelings for Zayn in pictorial form, a wall he used to say his last thoughts. Zayn kept that picture that they'd found next to the bottle of Jack he'd downed and the empty pill containers scattered around him.

“I love you too...”

          But Zayn's only reciprocation to those words would forever lie in that picture. The last picture Liam Payne ever took.

_Kodachrome_   
_You give us those nice bright colors, you give us the greens of summers_   
_Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah_   
_I got a Nikon camera, I love to take a photograph_

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: [livewhilewereforeveryoung](http://livewhilewereforeveryoung.tumblr.com)


End file.
